October 21, 2012 "IMAGINE WHAT'S POSSIBLE"

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Our most Awesome and Glorious God, we thank you for the sun that rises in the morning creating, for all the world, the new day. Whether its face is hidden among the clouds or we see it’s brilliance and feel the warmth its rays, we have not been grateful enough for its powerful light. When we confess that we take for granted, each new day, we are reminded of the many blessings we fail to acknowledge. Thank you, dearest Lord, for this family of faith, for those dear ones who seek to love us through and in spite of our faults and flaws. We thank you for life’s challenges; without them we would not comprehend the meaning of faith. We thank you for the millions of heartbeats that carry us through the days and nights of our life. We thank you most of all for the person of Jesus, the wisdom of his words and the example of his life. We thank you for the companionship of the Holy Spirit who remains with us to inspire us and ignite a fire of imagination within. Help us, Gracious God, to be your servants always imagining what’s possible in the name of the Christ. Amen.
PREPARING FOR THE OFFERING
Carl Sagan wrote: “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.” If we live believing that we are powerless to change ourselves or the systems that govern our lives; if we live thinking that there is nothing we can do, nothing we can change, nothing we can make better — that we have no power to influence even our own actions then we have embraced fatalism, not faith. Today, if you can reach into your pocket or purse and make an offering to the church, you have embraced faith, not fate.
UNISON OFFERTORY PRAYER
Gracious God our hearts and hands have committed these offerings to your keeping, to be used to further the work of the church in spreading the good news of your kingdom come upon the earth. May these faith inspired gifts reach into the darkest places of this earth to bring light. May they replace dearth with plenty and despair with hope. We pledge ourselves and the work of our hands that we may be your instruments of peace offering solace to a hurting world. In the name of the Christ. Amen.